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in, tied them up, and I think they’ll take. The ground got a good soaking and thass important.”
    I nodded and turned back to the little girl. “How is your mother, Lucy?”
    “She got hurt.”
    “I know. Is she feeling better now?”
    “I guess. She’s got a bandage around her neck.”
    “Perhaps I’ll see if she’s able to receive visitors.”
    I started away but Lucy came running after me. She clutched my arm and pulled me down to her level.
    “You remember?” she whispered.
    “About what?”
    “My secret place. You promised you’d come to a picnic there.”
    “Of course I will—after it dries out.”
    “And we’re still friends?”
    “Absolutely,” I told her. “Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be wearing diamonds.”
    She sniggered and scampered back to her work. I went to the half-open front door and found Mrs. Bledsoe peering out.
    “Good morning, Mr. McNally,” she said. “I’m keeping an eye on Lucy. I don’t want her to get too wet.”
    “She’s doing fine. How are you, Mrs. Bledsoe, after yesterday’s unpleasantness?”
    “Bearing up,” she said. “This too shall pass.”
    “I’m sure it shall,” I said, not at all certain. “And how is Mrs. Sylvia?”
    “Much better, thank you. She is wide-awake and alert and had two poached eggs and a cup of tea for breakfast. No toast because her throat is still sore, you know.”
    “I can imagine,” I said. “Do you think she’s in any mood for company?”
    “I can ask.”
    I followed her down the hallway and up the staircase, seeing again what a robust woman she was. Curious, but she and Constance Forsythe were the same physical type: square and resolute. I thought of them both as no-nonsense women who managed that rather giddy household with an iron hand in an iron glove. But I may have been moonbeaming.
    I waited outside Mrs. Sylvia’s door while Nora Bledsoe went in to confer with the patient. She came out a moment later.
    “Yes,” she said, “she’ll be happy to have company. The doctor has ordered her to stay in bed and rest for another day, and she’s bored. Wants to get back to her harpsichord, I expect.”
    “That’s understandable,” I said. “Mrs. Bledsoe, do you have any idea who might have done this awful thing?”
    “None whatsoever,” she said grimly and marched away.
    I entered the bedroom and found Sylvia Forsythe lying under a canopy as fanciful as a Persian tent. She was wearing a white gown, her head on two lace-trimmed pillows. A silk sheet was pulled up and tucked beneath her arms. There was a gauze wrapping about her throat, and atop the flowered counterpane was an opened musical score. She smiled brightly as I approached.
    “Mr. McNally,” she said, “how very nice of you to visit.”
    Her voice was husky and unexpectedly come-hitherish.
    “My pleasure,” I said. “I do hope you’re feeling better.”
    “Much,” she said. “I want to be up and about but I promised Dr. Pursglove to stay in bed another day. Pull up a chair.”
    I moved a chintzy number to her bedside and sat down. She reached a hand to me, I clasped it and she did not release my paw.
    “I’m delighted to see you looking so well,” I told her. “And Mrs. Bledsoe says you had not one but two eggs for breakfast.”
    She laughed. “And I’m famished. I’ve been promised pasta alfredo for lunch and I can’t wait.”
    I nodded toward the score. “And meanwhile you’re studying Vivaldi.”
    “Scarlatti,” she said, and we smiled at each other.
    She was an enormously attractive invalid. Her wheaten hair was splayed out on the pillows in a filmy cloud and her paleness gave her features a translucency revealing an inner glow. And she held my hand in a warm grip. This woman is married, I sternly reminded myself. And she is recovering from a grievous injury. But the McNally id could not be restrained.
    She noted me staring and turned her head away. “I feel so helpless,” she said in her husky, stirring voice.
    How was I to